


Wandering Daughter

by RedAnthem



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Allison Hargreeves-centric, Allison POV, Allison's noncon relationship history, Brief mention of menstruation, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Bonding, Sisterhood, trauma-bonding, when you're the Hargreeves its the same thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedAnthem/pseuds/RedAnthem
Summary: She’d spent her entire life up to this point constructing these narratives. At least with the stories she could construct the narrative in her favor. She wants her daughter to know that version of her mom that is a superheroine, a role model; she wants her to know a family of uncles and an aunt who aren’t all recovering fuck-ups.Allison and Vanya have a girl's night.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Claire & Allison Hargreeves, mentioned Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Wandering Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> I was having Allison thoughts while writing my other fic, so here's a post S2 canon fic about it!! Title is from a Kimya Dawson song of the same name.

“Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.” —Louise Glück

* * *

The issue with having a designated “girl’s night,” Allison thought, was that it implied that every other night was not for The Girls. Unfortunately, this was historically true for the Hargreeves sisters. 

Case in point: Allison and Vanya are currently hunkering down in the latter woman’s apartment after trying and failing to kick the boys out of the Hargreeves house for the night. 

It’s not really that unfair of the boys, to be quite honest, seeing that none of them have homes of their own. Klaus was homeless, Five was as well, in a much different sense; Ben was dead and Luther never left. Diego moved out of the boiler room in the gym since dad was gone and they’ve grown close enough as a family to be able to stand to live together again. 

Unfortunately for Allison and Vanya’s plans, their brothers saw the suggestion for them to leave the house for the night to be an attack on their right to their territory. Because, though they might have grown closer as a family; they’re still fundamentally the same assholes.

So she’s eating expensive ice cream by the pint on the floor of Vanya’s small apartment. It feels like home, nevertheless—Vanya’s place is eerily similar. It has the same stately, almost gothic flavor. Allison wonders if she should mention it because it’s interesting, or if that would be distasteful. 

They’re leaning against her old couch, ambiently watching cartoons that Claire would’ve liked, shows that would’ve been completely off-limits to them in their own childhood.

“You could’ve just rumored them, you know,” Vanya says.

Allison gives a defeated sigh. “I know.” She knows she could have, and she would have back when they were younger, but she’s trying to kick the habit.

“Honestly Allison, I think you’re more afraid of using your powers than _I_ am with mine.”

_Maybe you should be afraid,_ is Allison’s first thought, but it’s a cruel one, so she pushes it away. What is it that her therapist would say? It wouldn’t lead to a _constructive_ conversation. Or was it _productive?_

Either way, she decides to answer honestly, humbly. “If Klaus can go sober for a month, so can I,” she says. 

“Is that how you see it? Like an addiction?” Vanya stirs her spoon in her pistachio ice cream. She hasn’t eaten much of it, and keeps making weird faces that irritate Allison just a smidge—she wonders why Vanya would keep eating it if she doesn’t even like it. 

“Something like that, I guess.” It hurts to admit, but it’s true, isn’t it? While her brother depends _(depended)_ on drugs to get through the pains of life, Allison had her power.

Vanya doesn’t respond. She’s transfixed on the bright television screen. It’s some superhero cartoon that’s in that sharp and colorblocked style that she’s come to recognize as newer 2D animation. The characters all look disconcertingly familiar. It was the trend, after the Umbrella Academy’s debut, for all the newer superheroes to be of certain archetypes that just so happened to match up with their family perfectly. Allison wonders if that’s their true mark on the world. Dad once mocked her for that—for prioritizing her Hollywood career over being a hero—but it turns out she was right, in the long run.

“I remember they used to have Umbrella Academy cartoons,” Vanya says, a bit shamefully forlorn. “And comic books. And I think they were thinking about writing novels based on you guys?”

“About us, yeah. But that deal fell through pretty early on. The writers and publishers were asking for too much information from dad, and he got paranoid.” Allison would know. She was the one to rumor the team to quit the project. “What if I started a new TV show about us? We could include you in it. Make it like, some dramatic reveal at the season finale.” She’s only half-joking. 

“...No, I don’t think I’d want that. I’m not sure if I want to go public with my powers, to be honest.”

“Why not?” 

“Well, last time the public found out, it was in Dallas and I was getting interrogated over them. I don’t know. I think it’s better this way.” 

Allison wants to say so many shitty things. Like, _isn’t it nice I asked first before spilling everything? How does it feel to have everyone know all this dangerous personal information about you?_ And, _isn’t it nice that you were never marketed to death like we were? Don’t you want to have your own time in the spotlight?_

Instead she says: “I wonder if Claire would like it if I made a TV show about us.” 

It’s honest, humble. Because Patrick still hasn’t greenlit Claire coming to their city from Los Angeles to meet her aunt and uncles. Because she hasn’t been able to tell those stories about their childhood to Claire since that night Patrick stormed out of their daughter’s bedroom after he caught her in her web of lies. 

She’d spent her entire life up to this point constructing these narratives. At least with the stories she could construct the narrative in her favor. She wants her daughter to know that version of her mom that is a superheroine, a role model; she wants her to know a family of uncles and an aunt who aren’t all recovering fuck-ups.

“I bet she would, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” is all Vanya says, though Allison knows she’s saying so much more.

It hurts her pride to admit it, but she says it anyway: “You’re right.” 

* * *

Vanya’s playing her violin so loudly she can hear it all the way in dad’s office. It’s an ugly, shrill, shrieking instrument. She doesn’t know why her sister likes it so much.

Dad doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by it, though. He’s focusing intently on her instead, one cold blue eye piercing through her with his monocle. He’s examining her. What a mighty interesting specimen she must make.

“Number Three, I have a special task for you.”

“Yes, dad?” She answers coyly.

“I’m placing you in charge of managing your brothers’ presences while you’re out in the field. That means being mindful of cameras, and the opinions behind those cameras.”

_Ugh._ “But why me?” 

“Watch your tone,” her father snaps crankily. “Petulance is unbecoming of one of mankind’s future saviors.”

Life is so unfair. Why does she have to watch out for them? She can hardly stand Diego and Five, and can only _just_ tolerate Klaus on most days. And Luther can handle Ben on his own. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, reluctant. She performs surgery on her words; makes them as palatable as possible. “What makes me appropriate for this task?” 

“You have a natural sense of what the average citizen wants to see.” He tilts his head curiously. He has the same look of an owl: wide-eyed, stuffy, imposing, but most importantly, a bird of prey. “Young boys, even your brother Luther, are notoriously blind to public perception. The team needs a woman’s touch, if you will.”

The word _woman_ makes her stomach feel squeamish. She thinks of the alien tentacles that pour out of Ben, flopping around, hardly under his rein. She doesn’t know why. 

She got her period three months ago. One day she woke up feeling sick to her stomach, leaving rust stains on her sheets. Dread and doom filled her heart as she reported it to Pogo and Grace. Instead of sharing in her pain, they congratulated her and gave her supplies and instructions, said she was truly a young woman now, and that was that. She felt disgusting. It was the most unwomanly feeling she could imagine.

“But why can’t mom do it, then?”

“Grace is not meant to leave the house to go on missions,” her father chides. “She was designed to be the perfect mother, not a woman.”

Allison didn’t know there was a difference. But the idea stuck inside her head all the same.

Her brothers were pissed to hear she’d been given some responsibility over them—especially Five, who always preferred to do things his own way—which only sweetened the deal, in her opinion. She was a young woman, after all, and they were all just boys.

* * *

If there’s anything that Allison prides herself in, it’s optics. Though Luther was the only one who ever seemed to respect that. 

She made herself into a three-headed creature: Allison the sister, Allison the superhero, and Allison the family-friendly teenage idol. She guarded the gates with her blindingly-bright and chemically-whitened smile. Her mane was always perfect, even when covered in human blood and entrails. 

Diego was always pissed that bratty Number Three got to boss around Number Two, for once. Klaus kept her busy covering up his spiral into addiction and drug use—it wasn’t good for their public image as dependable, crime-fighting superheroes. And Ben? She just felt bad for Ben. She just tried her best to convince the world that her little brother was actually _human,_ underneath the vicious mass of Eldritch monsters. 

She never had to think about invisible little Number Seven until they were adults, when she had already put her responsibilities and concerns for the others far, far behind her. 

Life just isn’t fair. 

* * *

The tabloids came out after Vanya’s shitty book hit the bestseller’s list. She knew to expect that. 

To be quite frank, most of them didn’t even say anything new or original. Oh, she was rumoring her way into roles? So what? Even if she didn’t earn it on her first go-round, she made up for it later in her performance. Fake it til you fucking make it, baby. 

Everyone who was anyone knew she was Number Three, The Rumor before she was Allison Hargreeves. The first fucking real superheroine out there. 

Hell, half the people her age whom she worked with on sets these days asked for her autographs—not for her movies—but for being their childhood hero, their favorite character in a really badly done TV series. Her face was on every preteen- and teen-oriented magazine out there. She made sure of it.

She didn’t even bother reading Vanya’s book until she started seeing wholly different and far-too-real headlines hit the stands. That’s when she knew she was in trouble.

* * *

_“You may know her for being the leading actress of_ My Girl, Forever _or_ To Olympia and Beyond, _or for being America’s first real superheroine… Allison Hargreeves!”_

_Allison walks across the stage, smiling and waving to the live audience. They cheer, the sound accompanied by a jazz band, which lets out one last riff as she sits herself neatly on the armchair next to the host’s desk._

_She is dressed immaculately, but modestly. In the Umbrella Academy’s signature all-black, she looks like a mourner and the night sky all at once, with a few stark white accents to add character to her look._

_“Allison! It’s so great to have you here with us today. We have so much to talk about.”_

_“I think it’s great to be here too, Jeff.”_

_“So, tell us Allison—did the Umbrella Academy actually have a secret seventh child, or is that just a hoax?”_

_Allison pauses. “Well, to tell you the truth, Jeff… It’s not a hoax. Vanya Hargreeves was indeed our sister, though she wasn’t a part of the actual Umbrella Academy.”_

_The audience gasps._

_“It was for her own safety, of course. Her not having powers, and all.”_

_“Fair point—I’d hate to put a kid without your training and abilities out there in the fray. But tell us, now—have you read the book?”_

_“A bit of it, yes.” She buries the knife in between her cheeks._

_“So, is it true? That you, um… had a thing for your brother?” the host makes a playful grimace._

_The audience laughs._

_Allison scoffs and rolls her eyes, smiling to show off her perfect, straight row of teeth. “No, of course not!” She swallows. “I don’t know where that idea came from. Maybe that one TV show, the first one?”_

_“That 2005 one?”_

_“Yeah! All kids’ shows back then just_ had _to have romance, you know!” She laughs._

_The audience laughs with her._

_“Great!” The host remarks, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way…”_

* * *

How could she explain it? 

Nobody would understand. Nobody else could ever understand.

Everyone asks why the Greek gods would ever marry their siblings but nobody asks how it felt to grow up alone and burning eternally, trapped in the gullet of Time itself. What it felt like to bathe in acid and bile every waking moment of your life, completely at the mercy of your father, prophecy-damned since birth. What it was like to only experience loveliness by sticking your ear to the wall or peeking out the window. Nobody else could understand.

She prayed for the small mercy that Luther, at least, wasn’t watching. 

* * *

At some point, when the games of tag and play-house lost their luster; Allison, Klaus, Diego and little Ben used to spend their 30 minutes of free time just people-watching through the window, or flipping through the magazines Allison got from her photoshoots. 

Luther would be too busy following dad around like a sad, kicked puppy. Five was just gone, though they were over it, really, ‘cause that was forever ago. And Vanya was either in her room sawing away at her violin, or locked up at boarding school.

It’s the most pathetic and sad thing, now, looking back on it. Their burning desire to look and feel _normal._ To appear and look like normal teenagers, just with powers attached. They used to look at the embarrassing representations of teenage slang words and take it at face-value. They used to obsess over pop culture because the magazines told them to do it. They watched what people wore in the street outside and in the photos and created mental catalogues, imagining what the clothes would look like on their bodies. They berated each other for not looking or acting cool enough even though none of them were actually cool.

Just normal teenager stuff, Allison supposes. 

* * *

“Vanya, I love you, but you have _got_ to eat your ice cream or throw it away,” Allison says.

Vanya jolts, leaning away from her as if she’d just bit her. “What?”

“The ice cream. Just admit you don’t like it or throw it away, it’s no big deal.”

The other woman tentatively sticks more of the green ice cream (sludge now, really) into her mouth, like she’s trying to gaslight her, or prove she likes it after all. “It’s fine.” 

Allison sighs. “Don’t lie.”

The spoon and small container fall to Vanya’s lap. “I’m sorry, it’s just—”

“If you are going to say you didn’t want to waste my money…”

“No, it’s just, I didn’t really think about it. But you’re right, it doesn’t taste that good.” She laughs softly. It’s small and pitiful. “I don’t know why I do that, sometimes.” 

Sometimes, Allison doesn’t understand her sister, even a little bit. Number Seven was always concealed from the rest, as if by an iron curtain. 

Ironic, considering it was words from Allison’s own mouth that essentially brainwashed and remade Vanya’s whole psyche. Strange how siblings can affect each other so deeply and integrally and yet might never understand how much.

But she’s trying to listen, to understand her now. They’re all trying.

“What do you mean?” Allison asks.

Vanya lets her head fall onto the couch cushion, and looks at the white ceiling. Allison still thinks her apartment looks cozy, but it looks downright ghostly now; shadows seem to creep out where they shouldn’t. “Like… you know how when we were kids, I had the smallest room, next to Klaus’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, when I first moved here, and I saw I had all this space—don’t laugh—when I saw I had all this empty space to fill, I just couldn’t do it. I think, for so long, I’ve been told to do with less. And so I think I never learned to ask for what I wanted.”

Allison doesn’t know what to say to that. She feels guilty now; she feels spoiled. Vanya senses her discomfort—she was always watching them, after all—and starts muttering excuses. 

“No, it’s okay,” she cuts her off, and pats her knee placatingly. “Don’t worry about me, or what I think. I think you’re completely valid.”

“So I’m not valid?”

Allison groans. “That’s _literally_ not what I said.”

“But you just said not to worry about what you think.” 

Vanya’s looking at her now, black eyes lit with childish glee.

Sure, she doesn’t know her little sister all that well. But she knows she’s annoying, so there’s that.

* * *

The worst thing a girl can be is unwanted, because at that point, you might as well not be a girl at all.

This was Vanya.

Vanya was normal without even trying. Vanya had plain stringy brown hair and mousy features and wandered around the house more ghost than girl. Vanya was boring and when she wasn’t boring, she was whiny. Nobody, boys or girls, sent Vanya fanmail. Nobody wanted to spend time with her, not dad, nor their four remaining brothers. Vanya’s only remarkable talent was screeching on that violin. 

But Allison was wanted by the whole world. Allison was remarkable, one of a kind, the only girl in the team. Her hair and skin always glows, always _perfect._ Allison made the TV people laugh, Allison knew exactly what people wanted, and when she didn’t she _made_ them want it. Allison got fanmail in droves. Dad was proud of her, Luther loved her, and the rest of their brothers followed her lead. She never has to ask for what she wants because the world gave it to her anyway. 

Just not free of charge. There was always a cost, wasn’t there?

The worst thing a woman can be is unwanted, because—

God, she was fucking lonely.

* * *

“Leonard was my first boyfriend,” Vanya confesses. 

“I know,” Allison says. She doesn’t mean to be unkind, but she cringes at herself anyway.

“I know you know. Looking back… God, I was such an idiot. I’m sorry for not listening.”

“It’s no big deal,” Allison says, even though it really was. “You just wanted to be loved. We all did.” 

* * *

She would have rather been loved, not feared.

She had a string of boyfriends, before Patrick. Each she dated for no more than a year, and each relationship ended before she got too emotionally attached, before they could see all the barbs beneath her skin. 

She didn’t have to rumor all of them. Just some.

It wasn’t so bad, was it? It wasn’t, right? They would’ve consented anyway if she just made more of an effort, right? 

Allison met Patrick just a few months after Vanya’s book came out and ruined her life. Patrick was different from the rest, though. Before, it was just physical attraction that drove her, and the desire to be desired. But Patrick? Patrick made her feel safe. He was 33, a whole ten years older than her, was a great acting coach, and truly made her feel her best. She was a better person with him. And he seemed to enjoy being with her too. That’s love, right? He didn’t need to know anything else about her.

The wedding—her own Big Day—was perfect. It was so, so perfect. They got so many beautiful pictures and she only cried a little bit. Luther wasn’t able to come because he was going to be sent off to the moon in a few days and had to prepare but he sent his best wishes and she tried to not slam the phone down in tears because life was so, sososo unfair. It didn’t matter that Diego called her out on her bullshit later because he always knew her weak points far too well, it didn’t matter that she had to rumor Klaus into leaving because he was creating a scene. It didn’t matter that Ben was deaddeaddead and Five was God knows where.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t invite her only sister to the bachelorette party _or_ the wedding. She probably wouldn’t have even come, anyway.

* * *

Vanya threw out the ice cream and was eating the leftover sushi instead. She’s plucking them up and popping them in her mouth when she attempts to speak and nearly ends up spitting rice everywhere. 

“Shit, sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” 

Allison snorts, but her expression is without any malice.

Vanya grabs a pillow from behind her and chucks it at Allison’s face. She catches it easily and sits on it, because her butt’s getting numb after sitting on the floor for so long.

“What I was going to say is, is that I think I understand why you wanted to be a mom, now.”

Allison freezes. 

“What do you mean?”

Vanya has this dreamy, bashful face on that’s slightly unsettling. “After Harlan, it’s like my whole perspective changed, I guess. Before I lost my memories, I was just… I didn’t even think of it as a possibility, for me. I felt like I was too messed up. Still am, probably. But I didn’t even think to try it.

“But it’s exactly like you said. I never thought I could love someone that much.”

Allison’s blood feels like cold sludge in her veins. “You only knew the kid for a couple of months.”

“Yeah, I know, but I think I might be really good with kids, I might—”

“I’m just saying, it takes an awful lot to be good at being a mom.”

Vanya goes quiet, eyes downcast, twisting her lips into a small, straight line. 

“I guess you’re right.”

* * *

She and Patrick tried for several months before she finally got pregnant. In the meantime, Allison did her research. She purchased parenting books, baby books, and browsed thousands of color palettes for nurseries. Once she was finished with her first trimester and found out she would be having a daughter, she planned out all of the baby’s needs and activities until age 10. Patrick tried to help, tried to phone his ditzy mother to fly to L.A. and help her out, but she denied him every time. This was her job, her duty as a mother.

Her daughter’s life wouldn’t be perfect, but Allison wasn’t a normal mother. She wasn’t bound by the limits of harsh reality. Her mind ran through endless cycles of her daughter’s life. She could see her turning over and lifting her head for the first time, crawling, walking, running and tripping. Her first word would be “mommy” and then “daddy.” At five she’d be obsessed with horses, or maybe dogs, and Allison would buy her a puppy for Christmas and it would lick her daughter’s happy-crying face and Allison would capture the whole thing on camera. Her daughter would grow up with the dog and it would die eventually, as all things do, but Allison had read the section on “what if my child’s pet dies?” so her baby would be able to grieve and get over it and she’d thank her mom for being so understanding. 

When Allison was eight she tried and failed to convince dad to buy her a dog; she’d rallied all her siblings but Five and Seven to fight for this noble cause. In reality, what Allison wanted was a scarlet macaw, which would have been just as easy to get with dad’s money, but a cute puppy seemed like a more normal thing for a girl to want.

To motivate her, she thought about her best memories of her mom. Her daughter would be half-white, but she might still inherit Allison’s curly hair texture. She would sit her daughter down on a stool in front of her just like Grace did, and she would braid and twist her hair into intricate little styles that smelled like shea butter. Her little doll, her baby girl.

* * *

Allison’s eyes are glued on the black cherry ice cream she can’t even taste. She feels like she’s being stared at, but it’s just Vanya, and Vanya’s always watching anyway.

Finally, Vanya speaks, breaking the silence.

“You’re not a bad mom. I know you love her, despite everything.”

The words sting like acid on her neck. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

She knows she’s being short. She knows she should just let it out, just talk about it, just acknowledge that it’s there.

Vanya curls inward, tucking small legs underneath small arms. She’s so much more petite than Allison, almost like a child. 

“I know, I may not fully get it. I was just thinking, that’s all.”

And Allison feels guilty, because she’s doing it again, projecting her own issues and past sins onto Vanya, because she can’t handle it in its truth. Vanya’s words were unnecessary. She knows she’s a horrible mother, and that she only loved a version of her daughter—a speechless, completely obedient, perfect version, one who would play cute and see her mother as nothing but a superhero, a star. One who would love and admire and understand her the way Allison wanted to be loved, admired, and understood. One that wouldn’t make Allison feel alone in the world. 

And yet, here she is. 

* * *

Grace was designed to be the perfect, ideal mother. She was also designed to be perfectly subservient to Reginald’s wishes. These purposes, to anyone who knew what truly went on in that house, logically should have misaligned at certain points, but Grace handled her priorities perfectly, as she did everything else.

If only Allison could be so perfect. 

* * *

“I’m sorry, Vanya, just… ignore me. You don’t have to listen to anything I say,” she says, remorseful.

Vanya shakes her head vehemently. “No, no no, Allison. I’m listening. I don’t want to ignore you.” Her sister grabs her hand and scoots closer to her. 

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” she says, quietly, trying to stop her voice from breaking in half. 

Vanya smiles, and lets her head fall onto Allison’s shoulder. “A little bit, yeah.”

They stay there, for a bit. The Hargreeves never did physical affection, growing up, and yet she feels like she was born this way, with her sister’s head on her shoulder. 

“Did you mean it? When you said I wasn’t a bad mom?”

“Mm-hm.”

“...Still not as good as Mom, probably.”

“You’re even better,” Vanya murmurs.

Allison looks down at the top of Vanya’s head. Her sister’s brown hair tickles her cheeks and neck. “How? Honestly, how.” 

“You’re a human being. Imperfect as you are. She may grow up hating you as a mother, and you might even deserve it,” Vanya says serenely, her callused fingertips rubbing Allison’s knuckles. “But she can love you for the woman that you are, too. Trust me, as someone else you’ve rumored as a kid. M’kay?”

Allison doesn’t feel like a woman, exactly. She feels like a little girl again in a large cold house, just an orphaned, motherless girl next to her orphaned, motherless sister; all alone in the world, except for each other. She lets her shoulders fall, and allows herself to weep.

**Author's Note:**

> I found that Allison and Vanya's relationship in S1 is so perfectly awkward. They're both sisters, you can definitely tell Allison is trying, but there's always a huge gaping disconnect between them until the very end. As someone who grew up without brothers, I can't imagine having my life so dominated by male figures, but I think both of them give off this impression. I found Vanya's claim that Allison was jealous of Vanya threatening "her dominance"... hm. It's all just very interesting. 
> 
> Anyway, here's my [tumblr!](https://nerdkiller.tumblr.com/)


End file.
